Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
These speakers are a great deal. I have had them for about 2 years now. In stock form, they are pretty good, but if you really want to hear them sing, a few simple upgrades are in order. The first thing I did was to replace the crappy internal wiring. It was really thin and pathetic. Replace it with whatever you are using for your regular speaker wire. I used monster cable and it made a huge difference. They have much more bass now.
The next thing I did was to line the inside of the speaker box with fiberglass insulation from lowes. It is really cheap and really tightens up the bass. Experement around to find the right amount. Too much will kill all your bass.
My most recent mod was to dampen the magnets and baskets. This is easy to do. Just find some sort of foam or insulation and use tape or rubber bands to fix it to the magnets on the back of the speakers. This makes a huge difference. They have lots more clarity now.
The next thing on my list is to replace the caps with better ones and to solder all the internal wires to get rid of the cheapo clips that are used. I'll probably add some nice 5 way binding posts while I'm at it.

Strengths:
Now that these speakers have been properly tweaked, they sound great! I would put them against any new speaker that costs 3 times as much. These speakers are easy to mod, and the performance gains are good. Also, if you do screw them up, they are so cheap you can buy another pair.

Weaknesses:
I have them modified about as much as it makes sense to. If I were to go any further, I would have to get into nicer speaker cones, and that gets really expensive. On top of that, at that point the only thing that would be left would be the box, so you might as well get new speakers altogether. Now that they are modded, they sound significantly better, but they aren't phenominal. There is still a lot of room for improvement in speaker design. I know these are designed to be budget speakers and not audiophile quality, but I had to pick some weaknesses, so those are it.

Similar Products Used:
cerwin vega ls-8

Price Paid:  $75.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
I use these speakers as the surrounds for my system that has a high end sony reciever and large (15" woofer) front channel speakers. I have been very happy with them. I was looking for a surround speaker that could take a beating and these can. They have great bass response but I am even more delighted with the mid/high response. I have a friend who uses these as front channel speakers with his high end yamaha reciever and thsy sound great then too. The wood grain finish looks good for most decor... especially if you hate that black ash look that most speakers have. My only complaint is the lack of multi way binding posts so I can use banana plug terminals.

Strengths:
Good looks, mid/high response to die for

Weaknesses:
No multi way binding posts

Similar Products Used:
A638

Price Paid:  $38.00 from ubid

Summary:
great deal. nice design esp, front grills and finish. can compare to speakers in the 400-500+ range.

Strengths:
value. 3 ways with 8" woofer. specs says low is 90 hz but it has enough bass.

Weaknesses:
sound stage (sound are so close together). harse high freq. on few cds.

Similar Products Used:
like: Pioneer sdf2k (iso drive), klipsch rc3, rb5
ok: ar s20, mic m80, jbl s38, csw neuton 3way-8" woofer, jbl monitor 8" 2way
avoid: merak, mb-quart, altec lansing, bose 351

Price Paid:  $100.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
Overall, A good set of speakers. I originally bought them to replace speakers for an Aiwa mini-system. They did the job quite well. I recently bought a Sony DE545 and the receiver seemed to bring the speakers to a new level. I now have Klipsch SS5's for the rear and they compliment the Yamaha's well. If you're looking for a good speaker at a lower price, this is the way to go.

Strengths:
Loud. Work well w/ surround sound or w/out.

Weaknesses:
None so far.

Price Paid:  $58.00 from 6th Ave.

Summary:
For $58 a pair you can't go wrong. 6th Avenue must have a million of these because they are always advertising them. They really sound pretty good. I think you would have to spend as much as $200 to get a significant increase in sound quality. I use a Yamaha Sub with them along with a 60 watt/channel Yamaha AV receiver in a medium size room and we are very happy with the sound for both music and movies. We never have the volume up more than a third or the walls start shaking.

Strengths:
Good Sound, very effecient, cost

Weaknesses:
Bass a little weak, size is in between bookshelf and floor speaker

Similar Products Used:
AR